You moved from strategic consultancy to an operational role before co-founding Kéaxia. What did this switch teach you about the real implementation of a vision?
When you move from consulting to operations, you realise just how valuable a vision is only if it is transformed into concrete action.
I discovered that between intention and execution, there is all the human complexity: the trade-offs, the doubts, the collective energy to be harnessed.
The thing that impressed me most was the importance of clarity: the clearer the vision, the more it becomes a rallying point.
At Kéaxia, I’m careful to keep to this thread: we don’t make strategy for strategy’s sake, we make it lively, pragmatic, and above all useful to those who carry it out on a day-to-day basis.
At Kéaxia, you combine strategy and execution. How do you ensure that AI doesn’t remain confined to POCs with no follow-up?
At Kéaxia, we have observed that many companies are struggling to move beyond the POC stage when it comes to AI. To prevent these initiatives from going nowhere, we have identified several key levers:
- Strategic alignment from the outset: Each project must meet a clear business need and fit in with the company’s overall strategy. This ensures that the initiative has a real impact and justifies the investment required for its industrialisation.
- Design for industrialisation: From the POC phase onwards, we consider how the solution can be integrated into the existing production environment. This includes compatibility with existing systems, security requirements and scalability.
- Stakeholder involvement: We ensure that business, IT, legal and other teams are involved from the earliest stages of the project. This collaboration ensures that all operational considerations are taken into account and that end users are prepared to adopt the solution.
- Rigorous assessment of prerequisites: Before moving to industrialisation, we check that all the technical, organisational and human prerequisites have been met. This includes the availability of data, the necessary resources and team training.
- Adoption of MLOps best practice: We set up continuous integration and deployment pipelines, monitor models in production, and provide update mechanisms to maintain the performance of deployed solutions.
By combining these approaches, we transform POCs into operational solutions that deliver real added value, while minimising risk and maximising user adoption.
You place a great deal of emphasis on clarity of priorities as a driver for transformation. At a time when everything seems urgent, how can you help management to see things more clearly?
In today’s fast-paced world, the temptation is to deal with everything at once. But true transformation means saying no to the incidental in order to focus on the essential.
I often help my customers to take a step back, to reformulate their problem, to distinguish the noise from the signal.
At Kéaxia, we always start with one question: ‘What’s really at stake?’
It sounds simple, but this clarity changes everything. It allows us to channel our energy, secure our first victories and, above all, keep everyone aligned over the long term.
You work with product and data departments, which are often very male-dominated. How do you see the role of women in these functions changing?
Progress has undeniably been made, but what I see is that the issue is no longer so much the movement as the speed of the movement.
Accelerating this momentum means multiplying concrete initiatives, encouraging everyone to speak out and making diversity visible on a daily basis.
It is from this collective energy that innovation and performance are born.
As a member of the JFD Club, what do you come here for, and what do you want to pass on?
What I’m looking for is the energy that comes from the diversity of backgrounds, the unfiltered sharing and the kindness that encourages you to go further.
It’s a place of inspiration where every encounter feeds our thinking and inspires us to open up new perspectives.
What I want to pass on is, first and foremost, a sincere commitment to inclusion and diversity, in the belief that this is where transformative ideas are born.
It’s also the pleasure of sharing my experience, in a very practical way, and supporting those who want to move forward in tech.
And finally, to support initiatives that help new female leaders to emerge, because every success story inspires a whole community.
Would you have needed a network like this earlier on in your career? What difference would it have made to you?
Absolutely. When you’re starting out in your professional career, you sometimes feel alone in your convictions, in daring to take different paths.
A network like the JFD Club gives you strength, ambition and opens up possibilities.
Looking back, I think I would have gained in confidence, and no doubt accelerated certain choices.
Sara Himmich, cofounder Keaxia, JFD Club member
An IT engineer by training, Sara Himmich has helped over fifty companies with their data and AI transformation. She then managed the marketing and product development of a B2B marketplace, integrating data and AI engineering.
Passionate about useful and ethical innovation, Sara believes in pragmatic AI that serves performance and people. Today, she is the co-founder of Kéaxia, an AI studio dedicated to companies that want concrete results, without ever losing sight of impact and meaning.
